Sprint Summer 2006

It's aimed partially at kids. Specifically, kids just old enough that they wouldn't be caught dead with a dumbed-down toddler phone like a Firefly or Migo. Of course, many of those kids probably wouldn't be caught dead without a camera phone, but since the parents are probably the ones paying for it, this is what they'll be stuck with.

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The selling point for parents is the parental controls, such as blocking calls to all numbers that aren't on a short list. Nearly all GSM phones can do this, but it's not as common on regular CDMA phones.

Another parental control is locking data features, so kids can't rack up insane per-KB data charges if they're not on a data plan. This feature is probably related to the lack of a camera. What's the point of a camera if your parents won't let you use the photo service to get the photos off your phone?

The 2400 isn't just a "kids phone", though. It's also a perfectly good phone for those wanting something simple and affordable for talking only.

In the side-by-side shots above, you can see just how similar the 2400 and 3100 really are. While they tried to do some different things with the styling of the plastic, you can tell it's the same hardware underneath.

On nice feature of these new entry-level Sanyos is the very large external display. It's a big improvement over previous entry-level Sanyos that had a microscopic one-line external display.

Sprint's last new basic phone for summer is the Samsung A420.

The A420 is an exact clone of Samsung's X200 GSM phone for Europe. The only way you can tell it's not the X200 is the extra dedicated key for speakerphone.

The A420 is as basic as it gets these days, with no external display at all. The design is unique, though, and the build quality feels excellent.